Le gourou néocon Norman Podhoretz: "En tant qu'Américain et Juif, je prie pour que Bush bombarde l'Iran"

The Case for Bombing Iran
I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.
BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
May 30, 2007

Mr. Podhoretz is editor-at-large of Commentary. His new book, "World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism", will be released by Doubleday on Sept. 11. This essay, in somewhat different form, was delivered as an address at a conference, "Is It 1938 Again?", held by the Center for Jewish Studies at Queens College, City University of New York, in April.

La conclusion de son article:

Not so George W. Bush, a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this president, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.

Podhoretz: "We have to bomb Iran"
By Toby Harnden
27/10/2007

A senior foreign policy adviser to the Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani has urged that Iran be bombed using cruise missiles and "bunker busters" to set back Teheran’s nuclear programme by at least five years.

The tough message at a time of crisis between the United States and Iraq was delivered by Norman Podhoretz, one of the founders of neoconservatism, who has also imparted his stark advice personally to a receptive President George W. Bush.

Norman Podhoretz and Henry Kissinger

Podhoretz is a founder of neoconservatism

"None of the alternatives to military action - negotiations, sanctions, provoking an internal insurrection - can possibly work," said Mr Podhoretz.

"They’re all ways of evading the terrible choice we have to make which is to either let them get the bomb or to bomb them."

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Podhoretz said he was certain that bombing raids could be successful.

"People I’ve talked to have no doubt we could set it back five or 10 years. There are those who believe we can get the underground facilities as well with these highly sophisticated bunker-busting munitions."

Although Mr Podhoretz said he did not speak for Mr Giuliani, the former New York mayor whom he briefs daily appears to have embraced at least the logic of his hard-line views.

During a visit to London last month, Mr Giuliani said Iran should be given "an absolute assurance that, if they get to the point that they are going to become a nuclear power, we will prevent them or we will set them back five or 10 years".

Mr Podhoretz said: "I was very pleased to see him say that. I was even surprised he went that far. I’m sure some of his political people were telling him to go slow ... I wouldn’t advise any candidate to come out and say we have to bomb - it’s not a prudent thing to say at this stage of the campaign."

But Mr Podhoretz’s 77 years and his position as a pre-eminent conservative foreign policy intellectual means he can not only think the unthinkable but say the unsayable.

"My role has simply been to say what I think," he said, explaining that he takes part in weekly conference calls and is in daily email contact with the Giuliani campaign.

He is the most eminent of a clutch of uncompromisingly hawkish aides assembled by Mr Giuliani. They include Daniel Pipes, who opposes a Palestinian state and believes America should "inspire fear, not affection", and Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official who has argued that Condoleezza Rice’s diplomacy is "dangerous" and signals American "weakness" to Teheran.

"Does Rudy agree with me?" Mr Podhoretz asked rhetorically. "I don’t know and I don’t wish to know." But he added that "Rudy’s view of the war is very similar to mine."

Mr Podhoretz’s thesis is that the war on terror is in fact World War Four and that the 42-year-long Cold War should be more properly described as World War Three.

Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest honour, by President George W. Bush in 2004, Mr Podhoretz later sought a rare one-on-on audience with the US commander-in-chief. They met in New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel in the spring.

The author of the recent World War IV: the Long Struggle Against Islamofacsism spent about 35 minutes outlining his case for air strikes against Iran as Mr Bush’s then chief adviser Karl Rove took notes.

"Whether I had any effect on him I truly don’t know but I sure tried my best to persuade him," he said.

"He was very cordial. He was warm. He listened. He occasionally asked a question as I made the case but he was truly poker faced."

Mr Podhoretz left the meeting unshaken in his belief that Mr Bush would attack Iran before he leaves office.

- Why Does Norman Podhoretz Hate America? by Michael Scheuer, Sept 26 2007

- Il faut bombarder l’Iran, Richard Hétu, 30 Mai 2007

- Podhoretz secretly urged Bush to bomb Iran, David Paul Kuhn, Sep 24 2007

- The Neocons' Crazy Dream of World War III, by Rodrigue Tremblay, November 2 2007

- Zion-power and War: From Iraq to Iran. The Deadly Embrace.

- Neoconservatism as a jewish movement, Kevin Macdonald

- A List of prominent Jewish Neocons

La guerre c'est la paix, les sanctions c'est la diplomatie

War Is Peace, Sanctions Are Diplomacy

Carah Ong, Iran policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation in Washington, DC.
Middle East Report Online
24 Nov 2007

The White House is pressing ahead with its stated goal of persuading the UN Security Council to pass far-reaching sanctions to punish Iran for refusing to suspend its nuclear research program. Sanctions are what President George W. Bush is referring to when he pledges to nervous US allies that he intends to "continue to work together to solve this problem diplomatically." The non-diplomatic solution in this framing of the "problem," presumably, would be airstrikes on nuclear facilities in the Islamic Republic.

With its portrayal of UN and unilateral US sanctions as part of a diplomatic effort, the Bush administration has successfully confused much media coverage of the Iranian-Western confrontation over Iran's enrichment of uranium. Sanctions are punitive measures, not serious diplomacy, and the Bush administration has never undertaken a sustained diplomatic initiative aimed either at inducing Iran to cease enriching uranium or at soothing broader US-Iranian tensions. Meanwhile, the Bush administration's persistent refusal to take military options "off the table," combined with its intensified rhetoric against Iran, has made sanctions palatable to allies, as well as to some of the most dovish members of Congress and the American public -- but without addressing the political disputes that keep the US and Iran on a collision course. Congress, by and large, has merely greased the skids.

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

On September 28, the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US -- issued a joint statement, along with Germany and the European Union, agreeing to wait to discuss a potential third round of sanctions on Iran until International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana delivered progress reports on negotiations with Iran in November. No sooner had the IAEA released its November 15 report than the Bush administration renewed its push for stiffer penalties on the Islamic Republic.

US spokespersons seized upon the IAEA's statement that Iranian cooperation with its investigators, while "sufficient" and "timely," has been "reactive rather than proactive." This "reactive" posture, along with Iran's blockage of spot inspections of nuclear sites (as required by the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), made it impossible for the IAEA to assert that Iran's program is geared exclusively toward peaceful generation of nuclear power, as Iran claims. The US dismissed the positive aspects of the Agency's report. As State Department briefer Sean McCormack put it, "Partial credit doesn't cut it when you're talking about issues of whether or not Iran is developing a nuclear weapon." While the report did not give Iran a clean bill of health, its overall content suggests that there is room for real diplomacy to resolve outstanding issues.

The Bush administration, however, had tipped its hand, long before the IAEA report's release, that only additional coercive measures would be forthcoming. In August, it was leaked to the press that the State Department was considering designating the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps -- created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 to protect the Islamic Revolution from domestic and foreign foes -- as a terrorist organization. European allies expressed strong opposition to the idea, warning that such a unilateral initiative could alienate Security Council member China, thus forestalling another round of UN sanctions. The end result was Bush's executive order on October 25, imposing new unilateral sanctions and designating the Revolutionary Guards as a "proliferator of weapons of mass destruction" and the Guards' elite Quds Force as a "supporter of terrorism."

The basis for the latter designation was Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks. That order authorizes the US government to block the assets of organizations or individuals listed as sponsors of terrorism, as well as their subsidiaries, front organizations, agents and associates. It is unprecedented for the United States to use this measure against the armed forces of another nation.

Several other entities were listed in the executive order, including the Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics; two major banks and their subsidiaries; and construction, engineering and other firms owned or controlled by the Revolutionary Guards. Individuals affiliated with the Guards and with Iran's ballistic missile program were also named as "proliferators" to be sanctioned. Most notably, and inexplicably, absent from this list was Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, appointed as commander of the Revolutionary Guards by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on September 1.

If Bush's executive orders exacerbated the divisions among Security Council members over Iran, there is even more dissension following the release of the IAEA judgments. European allies have lined up behind the US position, with France and Britain saying that Europe could impose its own unilateral sanctions on Iranian oil and financial industries if the Security Council does not act. China and Russia, meanwhile, prefer to emphasize the progress that has been made in securing Iranian cooperation and have vowed to veto a third round of multilateral sanctions slated to come up for a vote in December. The parallels to the international deliberations over Iraq -- wherein US failure to achieve consensus on sanctions was marketed by hawks as justification for ever more aggressive US-British actions -- are hard to ignore.

CONGRESSIONAL PRELUDE

Throughout 2007, in fact, hawks in Congress have been intensifying their own pressure on the Bush administration to get tough on Iran. Section 2, Paragraph 14 of the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, introduced by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Relations, said "the United States should designate the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which purveys terrorism throughout the Middle East and plays an important role in the Iranian economy, as a foreign terrorist organization...and place the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of weapons of mass destruction proliferators and their supporters." The measure had 325 co-sponsors and passed the House of Representatives by a margin of 397-16 on September 25.

Though the bill nods to the view that "the United States should use diplomatic and economic means to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem," it is focused on the necessity of broader unilateral sanctions. During floor debate, not a single representative spoke in opposition. The Senate version of the bill, introduced by Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR), contains similar language, but has been held up in the Banking Committee. It is not clear when or if the measure will come up for a vote.

In any case, the far more important political cover for the executive order targeting the Revolutionary Guards was provided during debate of the 2008 defense authorization bill. Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) introduced Amendment 3017, a non-binding "sense of the Senate" resolution that expressed the view that the Guards should be labeled a terrorist organization, citing as justification the alleged role of the Guards and the Quds Force in supplying Shi'i militias in Iraq with money and material.

The Kyl-Lieberman amendment initially contained even more provocative language, calling on the US to use all means available, including "military instruments," to "combat, contain and roll back" Iran and its surrogates in Iraq. The two paragraphs containing this language were eventually dropped after several senators and the Democratic leadership expressed concern that it might be construed as an authorization for the use of military force against Iran.

Freshman Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) was particularly outspoken in opposition to the amendment, noting that even after the modifications, Kyl-Lieberman could still be interpreted as an authorization for the use of force. Nevertheless, on September 26, the amendment passed 76-22, with the Democratic presidential frontrunner, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, voting in favor, her opponent Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois not voting and only two Republicans, Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, voting against. The amendment helped to press the Bush administration into action.

HYPING THE THREAT

Behind both the White House and Congressional moves is the conviction that Iran, its protestations of peaceful intent notwithstanding, is trying to build an atomic bomb. On October 17, the president told reporters: "If you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." In a speech at a Washington Institute for Near East Policy retreat four days later, Vice President Dick Cheney worded it more strongly: "The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences. The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

Is the US conviction about Iran justified? The IAEA does not think so. Its November 15 report concluded: "The Agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran." The concern, as the UN watchdog acknowledged, is that Iran may be diverting undeclared material to a clandestine bomb-making effort, but there is no proof that such an effort exists. As Mohamed Elbaradei told CNN on October 28, there are "a lot of question marks. But have we seen Iran having the nuclear material that can readily be used in a weapon? No. Have we seen an active weaponization program? No."

As in the leadup to the Iraq war, hawks are fond of portraying the IAEA as hapless -- "the UN's nuclear watchpuppy," scoffs ex-Ambassador to the UN John Bolton -- and implying that the US knows more about Iran's capacities than is public. Yet the US has long delayed releasing an updated National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, requested by Congress in the Fiscal Year 2007 National Defense Authorization, which became law after it was signed by the president on October 17, 2006, reportedly because its conclusions are not alarming enough for the White House's taste. The most recent administration estimate of Iran's capability, delivered by then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte in February 2006, stated that if Iran continues on its current path, it could "produce a nuclear weapon within the next decade." The findings of the special Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction further highlight issues of credibility, revealing that US intelligence on Iran is as bad or worse than it was on Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion.[1]

The primary justification for the designation of the Revolutionary Guards as a "proliferator of weapons of mass destruction" actually had less to do with nuclear materials, and more to do with ballistic missiles. According to the State Department fact sheet released to justify the designation, the Guards Corps has been "outspoken about its willingness to proliferate ballistic missiles capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction." Ballistic missiles themselves certainly are not weapons of mass destruction, but the relevant executive order covers both "proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." Iran's ballistic missile program remains largely in its nascent stages, however. The US intelligence community has consistently estimated since 1999 that Iran will not have mastered the science of intercontinental ballistic missiles until 2015. At that point, Iran would still have to manufacture an arsenal of missiles and weapons to fit the missiles, putting the actual deployment date even further into the future. (Also, though the International Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation and the Missile Technology Control Regime are voluntary mechanisms intended to discourage states from proliferating missile technology, there is no binding international treaty that prohibits Iran from developing its ballistic missile capability.)

Since Iran lacks the ability to reach the United States, the Bush administration has tried to focus attention on the "threat" of its shorter-range missiles. Just two days before the sanctions rollout, Bush delivered a speech at the National Defense University in which he spoke of Iranian "ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel and Turkey, as well as American troops based in the Persian Gulf." He further cited the Iranian ballistic missile program as a justification for a heavier US military presence in Eastern Europe: "Today, we have no way to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat, so we must deploy a missile defense system there that can."

Congress has been complicit in bolstering the perception of peril emanating from Iran's missile program. On July 12, the Senate passed, by a vote of 95-0, an amendment introduced by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to the defense authorization bill. The amendment states that it should be the policy of the United States to develop and deploy, as soon as technologically possible, an effective defense against "the threat from Iran." Congress has cut the entire $85 million in requested construction funding for the new missile defense sites in Europe, however, perhaps heeding Defense Secretary Robert Gates' comment (made the same day of Bush's speech) that such sites need not be operational until Iran actually tests missiles capable of flying overhead.

DISABLING ENGAGEMENT

The unilateral US steps were clearly intended to stoke the fears of Security Council members that, in the absence of stronger UN sanctions on Iran, the Bush administration might take additional measures on its own. In the short and medium term, however, the more important question is their effect on the behavior of the Iranian regime, and there they appear to be a mixture of the toothless and the counterproductive. The direct effect of the designations is to freeze assets of the named Iranian entities on deposit in US financial institutions, but it is unlikely that such assets exist.

As for indirect effects, the Bush administration's prophecy of Iranian belligerence may be self-fulfilling: The Revolutionary Guards are deeply embedded in the country's political and economic structure. They operate a vast and nebulous network that usually does not act in unison or take a single position. Both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and one of his stronger political opponents, 2005 presidential candidate and Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqir Qalibaf, hail from the Guards' ranks, for instance. Differences of opinion among the Guards very much reflect the broader disputes in Iran today: There are those who want greater openness and increased engagement with the outside world and those who do not.

Some members of the Revolutionary Guards have expanded their role in the formal economic arena, especially the oil and gas sector. These members have been badly affected by economic isolation and sanctions because of their need for external expertise to maximize their enterprises' productivity. On the other hand, Guards who are involved in black-market activities, including oil and weapons smuggling, have no interest in increased engagement. For them isolation is a boon, as it is for the middlemen and brokers in Iran and Dubai who launder money and otherwise help businessmen in Tehran to skirt trade restrictions. US policies that pressure allies doing business in Iran play directly into the hands of enemies of engagement.

On the political level, of course, US sanctions allow hardliners to argue that moderates are deceiving themselves about the possibility of a rapprochement with the West. In the wake of the designations, many former Guards commanders who had been disillusioned with Ahmadinejad's defiant stance have closed ranks behind him. Others have been silenced, the most prominent example being former Guards commander Mohsen Rezaei, whose Baztab website was shut down by the authorities for its criticism of the government.

Though it is unclear whether the Security Council will be able to reach agreement on a third round of sanctions, side effects of US unilateral sanctions are already visible. In November, the World Bank suspended $5.4 million of aid scheduled for projects in Iran until it can find financial institutions other than the blacklisted Bank Melli to handle the transactions. The aid package was intended to assist Iran with recovery from the deadly Bam earthquake in 2003, as well as with water treatment, environmental management and urban renewal. Also in November, corporate giants Yahoo! and Microsoft removed Iran from the country lists of their webmail services. Sanctions may not alter the behavior of the Iranian government, but they certainly hurt the people of Iran.

SILVER LINING

One positive outcome of the October 25 designations is that they have reinvigorated efforts in Congress to put the brakes on the White House's Iran policy. Following the administration's announcements, Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC), Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), Ron Paul (R-TX) and Bill Delahunt (D-MA) held a press conference to introduce a bill designed to restore Congress' role in declaring war. Along with two co-sponsors, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) also introduced a resolution stipulating that "any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly approved by Congress before such action may be initiated."

Sen. Webb, who had broached a similar resolution in March, bolstered efforts to find co-sponsors for Durbin's bill. After being attacked for her vote in favor of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, Sen. Clinton signed up as a co-sponsor. Webb also initiated and sent a letter to Bush signed by 30 senators emphasizing "that no offensive military action would be justified against Iran without the express consent of Congress."

While he did not sign Webb's letter, presidential candidate Obama introduced his own resolution on November 2. It seeks to clarify that the use of force against Iran is "not authorized by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq, any resolution previously adopted, or any other provision of law." Meanwhile, Sen. Hagel sent a personal letter to Bush on October 17 urging the president to "offer direct, unconditional and comprehensive talks with Iran."

DIPLOMATIC OPTIONS

These pending resolutions and letters have not exactly tied the White House's hands, but they do inject a vitally important point into the political discourse: Just as the notion that sanctions and economic pressure are diplomatic tools is flawed, so too is the notion that the only strategic choices before the US are war or capitulation. Such was the false choice posed by the Bush administration with regard to Iraq. There is in fact a wide array of alternatives available to the US for resolving tensions with Iran, but the political will to get to the negotiating table has been lacking on both sides.

To break the impasse, the US should determine which elements of the offer made by Iran in 2003 to settle outstanding disputes might remain a feasible basis for talks. Washington should also drop its insistence that Iran suspend enrichment of uranium before such talks can begin. In effect, this insistence transforms the outcome of negotiations into a precondition for starting them. Dropping the precondition would signal to both Iran and European allies that the US is sincere in its repeated expressions of preference for real diplomacy.

In the near term, the US could offer confidence-building measures to help bridge the enormous gap in trust between the two countries. At a minimum, the US should pledge non-interference in Iran's domestic affairs, which is, in any case, its legal obligation under the terms of the Algiers accord signed in 1981 to end the hostage crisis. The Bush administration could repeal Office of Foreign Assets Control restrictions that prohibit US non-governmental organizations from obtaining licenses to work inside Iran, or offer to replace engine parts in the aging fleet of Iranian civilian aircraft. The US could also lift restrictions on visas, allowing for an increase in citizen exchanges, which would in turn foster the growth of constituencies in Iran calling for a government that is fully integrated into the international community.(...)

Un article d'analyse de SOTT offre un exemple des 'Insiders' ('Initiés') à Washington qui créent leur propre réalité.
Ils veulent attaquer l'Iran, et comme ils ont fait en Irak, ils manufacturent les excuses pour le faire. Aucun fait ni preuve n'est jamais pris en considération.

Rupert Murdoch and William Kristol: Using the Press to Advance Israel's Interests, By Richard H. Curtiss, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 2003

Neoconservatism as a jewish movement, Kevin Macdonald

A List of prominent Jewish Neocons

Uranium appauvri: le génocide irakien

Radioactive Ammunition Fired in Middle East May Claim More Lives Than Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Sherwood Ross
OpEd News
20 Nov 2007

By firing radioactive ammunition, the U.S., U.K., and Israel may have triggered a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East that, over time, will prove deadlier than the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan.

So much ammunition containing depleted uranium(DU) has been fired, asserts nuclear authority Leuren Moret, "The genetic future of the Iraqi people for the most part, is destroyed."

"More than ten times the amount of radiation released during atmospheric testing (of nuclear bombs) has been released from depleted uranium weaponry since 1991," Moret writes, including radioactive ammunition fired by Israeli troops in Palestine.

Moret is an independent U.S. scientist formerly employed for five years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and also at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, both of California.

Adds Arthur Bernklau, of Veterans For Constitutional Law, "The long-term effect of DU is a virtual death sentence. Iraq is a toxic wasteland. Anyone who is there stands a good chance of coming down with cancer and leukemia. In Iraq, the birth rate of mutations is totally out of control."

Moret, a Berkeley, Calif., Environmental Commissioner and past president of the Association for Women Geoscientists, says, "For every genetic defect that we can see now, in future generations there are thousands more that will be expressed."

She adds, "the (Iraq) environment now is completely radioactive."

Dr. Helen Caldicott, the prominent anti-nuclear crusader, has written: "Much of the DU is in cities such as Baghdad, where half the population of 5 million people are children who played in the burned-out tanks and on the sandy, dusty ground."

"Children are 10 to 20 times more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults," Caldicott wrote. "My pediatric colleagues in Basra, where this ordnance was used in 1991, report a sevenfold increase in childhood cancer and a sevenfold increase in gross congenital abnormalities," she wrote in her book, "Nuclear Power is not the Answer"(The New Press).

Caldicott goes on to say the two Gulf wars "have been nuclear wars because they have scattered nuclear material across the land, and people---particularly children--- are condemned to die of malignancy and congenital disease essentially for eternity."

Because of the extremely long half-life of uranium 238, one of the radioactive elements in the shells fired, "the food, the air, and the water in the cradle of civilization have been forever contaminated," Caldicott explained.

Uranium is a heavy metal that enters the body via inhalation into the lung or via ingestion into the GI tract. It is excreted by the kidney, where, if the dose is high enough, it can induce renal failure or kidney cancer. It also lodges in the bones where it causes bone cancer and leukemia, and it is excreted in the semen, where it mutates genes in the sperm, leading to birth deformities.

Nuclear contamination is spreading around the world, Caldicott adds, with heaviest concentrations in regions within a 1,000-mile radius of Baghdad and Afghanistan.

These are, notably, northern India, southern Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tibet, Pakistan, Kuwait, the Gulf emirates, and Jordan.

"Downwind from the radioactive devastation in Iraq, Israel is also suffering from large increases in breast cancer, leukemia and childhood diabetes," Moret asserts.

Doug Rokke, formerly the top U.S. Army DU clean-up officer and now anti-DU crusader, says Israeli tankers fired radioactive shells during the invasion of Lebanon last year. U.S. and NATO forces also used DU ammunition in Kosovo. Rokke says he is quite ill from the effects of DU and that members of his clean-up crew have died from it.

As a result of DU bombardments, Caldicott writes, "Severe birth defects have been reported in babies born to contaminated civilians in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan and the incidence and severity of defects is increasing over time."

Like symptoms have been reported among infants born to U.S. service personnel that fought in the Gulf Wars. One survey of 251 returned Gulf War veterans from Mississippi made by the Veterans Administration found 67% of children born to them suffered from "severe illnesses and deformities."

Some were born without brains or vital organs or with no arms, hands, or arms, or with hands attached to their shoulders.

While U.S. officials deny DU ammunition is dangerous, it is a fact Gulf War veterans were the first Americans ever to fight on a radioactive battlefield, and their children apparently are the first known to display these ghastly deformities.

Soldiers who survived being hit by radioactive ammunition, as well as those who fired it, are falling ill, often showing signs of radiation sickness. Of the 700,000 U.S. veterans of the first Gulf War, more than 240,000 are on permanent medical disability and 11,000 are dead, published reports indicate.

This is an astonishing toll from such a short conflict in which fewer than 400 U.S. soldiers were killed on the battlefield.

Of course, "depleted uranium munitions were and remain another causative factor behind Gulf War Syndrome(GWS)," writes Francis Boyle, a leading American authority on international law in his book "Biowarfare and Terrorism," from Clarity Press Inc.

"The Pentagon continues to deny that there is such a medical phenomenon categorized as GWS---even beyond the point where everyone knows that denial is pure propaganda and disinformation," Boyle writes.

Boyle contends, "The Pentagon will never own up to the legal, economic, tortious, political, and criminal consequences of admitting the existence of GWS. So U.S. and U.K. veterans of Gulf War I as well as their afterborn children will continue to suffer and die. The same will prove true for U.S. and U.S. veterans of Bush Jr.'s Gulf War II as well as their afterborn children."

Boyle said the use of DU is outlawed under the 1925 Geneva Convention prohibiting poison gas.

Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, writes in his "The Sorrows of Empire"(Henry Holt and Co.) that, given the abnormal clusters of childhood cancers and deformities in Iraq as well as Kosovo, the evidence points "toward a significant role for DU."

By insisting on its use, Johnson adds, "the military is deliberately flouting a 1996 United Nations resolution that classifies DU ammunition as an illegal weapon of mass destruction."

Moret calls DU "the Trojan Horse of nuclear war." She describes it as "the weapon that keeps killing." Indeed, the half-life of Uranium-238 is 4.5-billion years, and as it decays it spawns other deadly radioactive by-products.

Radioactive fallout from DU apparently blew far and wide. Following the initial U.S. bombardment of Iraq in 2003, DU particles traveled 2,400 miles to Great Britain in about a week, where atmospheric radiation quadrupled.

But it is in the Middle East, predominantly Iraq, where the bulk of the radioactive waste has been dumped.

In the early Nineties, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority warned that 50 tons of dust from DU explosions could claim a half million lives from cancer by year 2000. Not 50 tons, but an estimated two thousand radioactive tons have been fired off in the Middle East, suggesting the possibility over time of an even higher death toll.

Dr. Keith Baverstock, a World Health Organization radiation advisor, informed the media, Iraq's arid climate would increase exposure from its tiny particles as they are blown about and inhaled by the civilian population for years to come.

The civilian death toll from the August, 1945, U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been put at 140,000 and 80,000, respectively. Over time, however, deaths from radiation sickness are thought to have claimed the lives of another 100,000 Japanese civilians.--

Pour plus de détails sur les méfaits des armes nucléaires et à uranium appauvri, lire: Le nouveau paradigme nucléaire

The Uranium War: cancer increase 1000%, American Boy born with no arms, just born Iraqi with no encephalon

4,2 millions de réfugiés irakiens

One Million Dead in Iraq: Our Own Holocaust Denial, Mark Weisbrot, 22 Nov 2007

Il apparaît toujours plus clair que les forces US/Israéliennes derrière cette guerre - responsables de ce qui arrive aux Irakiens et aux Palestiniens (Israël en guerre contre Gaza) - veulent rien de moins qu'éradiquer les peuples Sémites, purement et simplement. C'est la conclusion à laquelle aboutit Laura Knight-Jadczyk dans son livre sur le 11 septembre : 9/11 The Ultimate Truth. C'est aussi une conclusion à laquelle le scientifique David Kelly était arrivé, avant que ce dernier soit retrouvé mort, mystérieusement...

Mossad mission: Murder Iraqi scholars, Press TV, 12 Dec 2007

Video: Israel's raid on Iraq's reactor: operation "Opera"

Depleted Uranium - Far Worse Than 9-11

Le nucléaire Israélien (video)
L'option Samson: machine infernale de bombardement nucléaire mondial

Chavez: le Venezuela va rompre ses relations avec Israël

Larry Luxner

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 (JTA) — Last month, shortly after Iran’s president again declared that Israel should be wiped off the map and that the Holocaust was mostly Zionist propaganda, Venezuela’s president embraced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran, calling him a “true friend and brother.”

Last week, Hugo Chavez equated Israel’s aerial bombardment of Lebanon with Nazi war crimes and recalled his ambassador from Tel Aviv. The next day, Israel’s Foreign Ministry responded by calling home its envoy in Caracas, Shlomo Cohen.

On Wednesday, Chavez threatened to break diplomatic relations with Israel altogether.

The escalating war of words between Israel and Venezuela — longtime trade partners — is causing concern among Venezuela’s dwindling Jewish community and in Washington, where U.S. officials view Chavez as Latin America’s greatest threat to democracy.

But Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States, defends his president’s actions.

“We don’t have any problems with Jews,” Alvarez told JTA in an interview Tuesday at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. “We have a large Jewish community, and we have had relations with the State of Israel for a long time.

“But Venezuela’s position is that we should do something, because this massive bombardment and killing in Lebanon is morally unacceptable,” he continued. “We are waiting for the international community to put a stop to it.”

With an estimated 15,000 Jews, Venezuela is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in Latin America, yet it’s the only country to recall its ambassador to Israel in order to protest the current fighting.

“We thought we should tell the Israeli government that this is not the way to do things — no matter what happened — and that you cannot resort to such violence,” said Alvarez, who never during the interview criticized Hezbollah’s continuing rocket and missile attacks on Israeli civilians or its kidnapping and killing of Israeli soldiers.

Hezbollah is supplied and financed by Iran, though Alvarez claims Venezuela’s anti-Israel position “doesn’t have anything to do” with Chavez’s trip to Tehran.

“We have a long relationship with Iran that goes back many years, and is based on many common interests, starting with oil,” he said.

Alvarez tried to distance Chavez from some of Ahmadinejad’s more inflammatory statements, explaining that “we have relationships with many countries around the world, and it doesn’t mean we support all of them. Venezuela’s position is very clear: we don’t agree with that statement made by the president of Iran” calling for Israel’s destruction.

He added that Venezuela has good relations with Libya, and now has observer status at the Arab League.

“This is part of our strategy of reaching out to the world,” he said.

The strategy has infuriated the Bush administration, which has watched as Chavez travels the globe, embracing not only Ahmadinejad and Libya’s Moammar Ghadafi, but also other dictators such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus.

In an interview last week with Al-Jazeera, Chavez said Israel’s airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon were an “unjustified aggression that is being carried out in the style of Hitler, in a fascist fashion.”

Earlier this year, Chavez was accused of fanning the flames of anti-Semitism after a Christmas eve speech in which he referred to “minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ” who today control the world’s economy. The government later claimed Chavez wasn’t referring to Jews.

But the incident heightened concerns about Chavez dating back to a police raid on a Jewish school in Caracas in November 2004. Two high-ranking officials from the World Jewish Congress met with Chavez in late July at the residence of Argentina’s president, Nestor Kirchner, to discuss his government’s attitude toward Venezuela’s Jewish community.

The United States remains Venezuela’s biggest customer, buying 60 percent of the country’s total exports. The biggest component of the trade is oil; Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA oil monopoly ships 1.2 million barrels of crude a day to U.S. markets and also owns refineries in Louisiana, Texas and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

In addition, it has 100 percent ownership of the Citgo gas-station chain.

Bilateral relations took a turn for the worse after Chavez — who had led failed coup attempts against the Venezuelan government in the early 1990s — was elected president in 1998. Washington prevented Israel from selling Venezuela spare parts for its aging F-15 fighter jets.

Thanks partially to record-high oil prices that allow his government to spend lavishly on social programs, Chavez remains wildly popular. Presidential elections are scheduled for Dec. 3, though if the election were held today, pollsters say, Chavez would win 55 percent to 60 percent of the vote, thanks to his years of pumping oil revenues into new housing projects, community clinics and road construction.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s political opposition is fractured, with one presidential candidate — prominent Jewish economist Teodoro Petkoff — withdrawing his candidacy only a few days ago. (...)

Haro sur Chavez l'antisémite!





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